Knowledge article publication
After a knowledge article has been reviewed and approved, it's ready to be published. After an article is published, internal and external users can use it when they resolve cases, or they can access it from a portal.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 provides two options for publishing articles:
- Immediately: You can publish the article right away. You might use this option if, for example, the article content is related to sign-in issues that multiple customers are reporting right now.
- Scheduled publish: You can delay publication until a specific time. You might use this option if, for example, the organization's merchandise return policy will be changing on the first of the month. An article can be written in advance and published when the new procedures are in place.
Before you publish an article, we recommend that you take one last look at it. Consider whether there's anything else that might help users and customers find it more easily or consume it more effectively. For example, here are some questions that you might consider:
- Is the article somehow related to other articles?
- Should the article be associated with other products or services?
- Should both internal and external users be able to consume the article?
Depending on your answers to these questions, you can use the following buttons on the command bar for the article:
- Related Article: Associate the current article with one or more similar articles that are stored in Dynamics 365. Related articles can be viewed from the Related Articles record in the Related Information pane on the Summary tab.
- Related Product: Associate the current article with one or more similar Dynamics 365 products that are stored in the product catalog. Related products can be viewed from the Related Products record in the Related Information pane on the Summary tab.
- Mark Internal: Mark the article for internal use only. External customers won't be able to consume the article from a portal.
- To publish a knowledge article, select Publish on the command bar. In the dialog box that appears, you can:
A knowledge article is published, by selecting the Publish button on the command bar. This opens the Article publish screen. From here, you can do the following:
- Define when the article is published: In the Publish field, select whether you want to publish the article right away or in the future.
- If you select In The Future, select the date and time of publication in the Publish On field.
Define a status for the published article: In the Published Status field, select the status that the article should be set to after it's published.
- By default, Published is selected.
Define whether the article expires: In the Expiration Date field, select the date and time when the published article should expire.
- Expired articles are no longer available in searches.
- If you set an article to expire, in the Expiration Status field, select the status that the article should be set to after it expires.
- Define whether the article translations should be published: To publish all approved article translations together with the article, in the Publish approved related translations with article field, select Yes.
- Each article translation must be approved before it can be published. Article translations that haven't been approved won't be published.
After an article is published, it will remain published until the expiration date is reached (if an expiration date has been defined), or until the article is manually unpublished.
For more about scheduling and publishing an article, see Schedule or publish an article.
Knowledge article feedback
Once an article has been published, the easiest way to ensure it remains relevant is by capturing regular feedback from those that are using the article. This helps you identify possible errors, or areas where procedures need to be updated. As you capture feedback, you can easily update your knowledge articles to make the article useful for agents.
You can add feedback by going to Knowledge Articles in the customer service app. On the article you want to provide feedback for, select Create Feedback. When providing feedback, you'll need to provide the following information:
Title: Provide a descriptive title that identifies what feedback is about.
Regarding: Allows you to associate the feedback record with relevant records.
Source: Specifies if the feedback is internal or from a portal. For example, If you received feedback via a phone call, you can select Internal.
Comments: Provide any relevant comments related to the feedback.
Rating: Enter a number to specify how useful the related record is. For example, if you're tracking the customer satisfaction for a case and you want to rate it a 2 on a scale of 1-10, type 2.
Minimum Rating and Maximum Rating: Specify a minimum and maximum rating to define a rating scale. For example, if you want to give it a rating of 2 on the scale of 1-10, type 1 as the minimum rating and 10 as the maximum.
Created by (Contact): If the feedback is being created on behalf of a customer contact, identify the contact here.
Normalized Rating: This is calculated automatically using the following formula - (Rating - Minimum Rating)/ (Maximum Rating - Minimum Rating).
To learn more about creating feedback items, see Manage feedback for knowledge articles.